Repairs
by Sisiutil
Summary: Spike is called upon to help the mentally disturbed slayer Dana. But what if the ensouled vampire decides she's beyond hope? Also features Andrew and Faith. COMPLETE.
1. Part 1 of 3

Repairs  
  
Part 1 of 2  
  
_a Buffyverse fanfic by Sisiutil_  
  
(This story takes place a few months after the end of Angel Season 5 and features Spike, Dana, Faith, and Andrew.)

* * *

"BOLLOCKS!"

Spike shouted the curse angrily as the latest blow threw him crashing into the grey concrete wall, and not for the first time. His right shoulder blade took the brunt of the impact and sent a burning shiver of pure pain through the rest of his body. He shook his head, opened his eyes, and glared angrily at his opponent.

By rights, he should have been enjoying this. Spike loved a good tussle. In fact, he could think of very few things in this world he loved more. Cigarettes, perhaps. Watching Manchester United. A certain blond-haired Slayer. And, to be perfectly honest, the taste of blood. _Not my own blood, mind you_, he reflected as he licked a trickle of the cold, stagnant fluid from his upper lip.

"All right, pet," he grumbled as he pushed himself away from the wall and straightened his long black leather coat. "Not bad. But I've 'ad better," he added with a licentious grin.

If he was seeking to anger his opponent and bring on another attack, he succeeded. Spike ducked away from the young woman's sudden right jab. But it was a feint, and her left foot swung up in a lightening-quick roundhouse kick that caught him on the side of the jaw and sent the vampire spinning away and slamming back into the wall again.

"Oh, BLOODY HELL!" Spike roared. He stumbled a few steps away from both the wall and the girl. It took all his willpower to keep from going into full vamp-face. He wanted to. Oh, did he want to! He wanted to show this slip of a girl what he could really do. Show her how he'd killed two of her kind before. Show her the ultimate fate of all Slayers, the final crunch, the snap, the spurt of lifeblood into his eager mouth.

But he had a soul now. He was one of the good guys, or so he kept telling himself. And he was supposed to be helping this girl, not killing her. Not that any of it was taking. He'd walked in to the concrete-reinforced chamber expecting a heart-to-heart. Instead, she'd been smacking him about in the enclosed room for the better part of a half hour. Why did every woman he met treat him like a punching bag? Illyria, Harmony, Buffy...well, at least with Buffy it had been fun. This wasn't. Spike had trouble keeping his temper in check at the best of times. Keeping it under control now was taking a Herculean effort on his part.

"You won't hurt me anymore," Dana asserted quietly, her teeth clenched, her dark eyes fastened unblinking on Spike's increasingly unsteady form. She slowly moved towards him, her slender body's muscles coiled like a tightly-wound springs.

"Oh, bollocks!" Spike cried, annoyed and offended. "I didn't come in here to hurt you, you barmy bint! Now why don't we just pretend the bloody bell rang, and go to our corners, and calm..."

"Beat you before. Beat you again," Dana said, her voice quiet but confident.

"Now, I wouldn't go bringin' that up, if I was you," Spike warned her, his eyebrows and one finger raised. He glanced at his hand and flexed his fingers, glad they were still there and attached to the rest of him. No thanks to her. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice..."

"Don't stop 'til you see dust..." Dana murmured angrily, then repeated it, as if the phrase was a mantra.

Spike's eyes went wide, then narrowed with anger. "Oh, so _that's_ the tune you want to sing, eh?" he growled in response. He pursed his lips angrily. That was the last straw; he'd had enough. "Fine. Gloves off, then. No more Marques of Queensbury nancy-boy bullshit."

He cocked his head, and with a crunch of folding bone and stretching skin, went into full vamp face. He could almost hear the air sucked through the clenched teeth of those watching from behind the safety of a sheet of bullet-proof, three-inch thick glass on the other side of the room. The thought amused him. He smiled, a change of expression that only made his suddenly-sprouted fangs more prominent.

"Come on, Slayer. Let's dance," he snarled.

Dana shouted, sprang forward, and swung her right at him in a powerful roundhouse. She missed this time; Spike leaned back, dodged the blow, and danced away, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a boxer, the edges of his leather duster flapping about his leg's like a bat's wings. He laughed, finally enjoying the fight now.

"Missed me, missed me, now you hafta kiss me!" he taunted her, grinning ferally. "I been holdin' out on you. But not anymore, luv. You get the full monty now..."

Dana's lips peeled back from her teeth, revealing an angry grimace. Her long, curly black hair hung in front of her face and made her resemble some wild beast that had wandered out of a primordial forest. She half-snarled, half-shouted, and launched herself at Spike, her right arm pulled back to deliver a blow. But the vampire just smiled and laughed. He side-stepped her attack with alarming speed. He raised his right leg as she went by and struck her full-force in the stomach. The blow knocked the wind from the Slayer, and lifted her off the ground. Spike stepped back and the brunette fell face-first to the floor, her body and face smacking against the concrete loudly.

She started to push herself up, her head rising from the pavement. Had she known Spike better, she would have realized it was a mistake to present him with such an easy and tempting target. Spike drew back his foot and kicked her squarely under the chin. The powerful blow lifted Dana's body from where it lay on the floor and flipped her over. The back of her head stuck the concrete with a loud _thud_. Her dark eyes rolled up inside her head and she fell unconscious.

Spike loomed over her and snorted derisively. Of course she wasn't seriously hurt; her innate Slayer's recuperative powers would ensure that. _But she won't be so bloody cocky next time... _Behind him, Spike heard the door to the chamber open. He didn't turn around.

"Okay, that wasn't exactly what we had in mind, _compadre_." Andrew stood in the doorway, nattily attired in a tweed jacket and dark brown trousers, an unlit pipe in his right hand, seemingly there for appearance's sake alone. "I know the tough love approach worked on Omicron Seti 3, but even so, knocking Spock out wasn't in the captain's log, if you catch my drift."

"Bugger you," Spike replied as he turned towards Andrew and let his features fold back into human form. "She's no better than she was a year ago when we found her. When she did for my feelers, need I remind you?" he said pointedly, holding up his hands. "She's a rabid bloody dog, this one. Best to put 'er down and 'ave done with it. Not like there's a shortage of Slayers these days."

"Not an option, blondie," Faith said as she sauntered into the room. Her arms were folded beneath her breasts, which were covered by a blood-red t-shirt that rivaled her black leather pants for body-hugging tightness. Her head was cocked to one side, her long, tousled chestnut hair framing her face. Her dark eyes held the vampire's in a steady gaze. "She's one of our own. And speaking as a former rabid dog myself, she's been comin' along, current encounter notwithstanding."

As she spoke, a trio of Slayers entered the room and gathered around Dana's limp and unconscious form. One of them glared at Spike. He glared right back, then winked and puckered his lips at her. The Slayer glowered at him as she and her compatriots gently picked Dana up and carried her out through the doorway.

"The shrinks say she's at..." Faith's eyes looked toward the ceiling as she recalled the exact phrase, "'a critical stage, but also an impasse, requiring an external intervention'. Hey, I don't pretend to grok their double-speak either!" she said defensively, her hands held up, in response to Spike's scornful glare. "Never have, never will. But they think you're the key."

"No, _Dawn's_ the sodding key," Spike joked sullenly as he pulled a cigarette out from its pack and placed it between his lips. "Or was," he muttered uncertainly. "Point is, I just bring out the worst in 'er."

The vampire paused a moment as he flicked his lighter and lit the cigarette. "Heh. Done _that_ for more than one Slayer, actually," he added with a smirk and a deliberately provocative leer at Faith as he took a much-needed drag. He was utterly unsurprised when she leered steadily back at him, her thin, arched brows raised and her eyes smoldering with her own suggestion. Spike's smile broadened.

"So...you gettin' enough wood from Woody these days, luv?" he murmured to the sultry Slayer, who cocked an eyebrow at him as a warning. But she didn't tell him to stop. His face took on an achingly sincere expression; he pulled the cigarette from his lips and leaned towards her. "Those are very nice leather pants you're wearing," he murmured earnestly.

"That sort of line work on the ditzy blondes you like so much?" Faith asked pointedly.

She took the cigarette from his fingers and put it to her own lips for a drag. Spike watched her. Slayers had always fascinated him. And Faith...she was so much like him; in love with the rush that came from a good fight, and still willing to dance dangerously on the thin line that separated good from evil. If Buffy eventually cast him aside for Captain Monobrow...

Andrew coughed. "Excuse me, Han and Leia, hate to go all Threepio on you, but could we focus on the repairs to the Millennium Falcon for a moment here?" The Slayer and the vampire turned their attention--albeit reluctantly--to the Watcher-in-training. "She's firing on all thrusters, but her shields are maxed out and her weapons array's on a hair trigger, and we can't let her out into hyperspace in that condition."

Faith frowned and blinked, then turned to Spike. "I think the dweeb means she still has some anger management issues," she said. She took one more puff and then handed the cigarette back to the vampire.

"Holy head butts, Batman, you think so?" Spike replied, his voice heavy with sarcasm as he rubbed his sore forehead, which had been treated to just such a blow during his sparring match with Dana.

"Faith's right, she's made progress. She's fine around females, but males still set her off. Especially if she sees them as a threat, which she certainly does in the case of a formidable vam_-pyre_ such as yourself," Andrew went on authoritatively, gesturing towards Spike with the pipe and pronouncing the term in that affected way that annoyed everyone so much. Spike sometimes wondered if he did it intending for that effect. "By making her encounter such a threatening male figure--especially one with whom she's had previous confrontations--and by dealing with him in a _non-violent_ manner, it's hoped that she can progress to the next stage in her therapy."

"Bloody hell," Spike muttered after a moment's pause. "I actually understood that."

"So you'll help her," Andrew said forcefully. It wasn't spoken as a question. Spike reminded himself that his deceptively-nerdy little ponce had outsmarted not only Angel but his entire team, including the forces of Wolfram and Hart, when they'd first encountered Dana. He'd also been instrumental in getting Spike, Angel, and the others out of that rain-soaked alley in one piece, so it wasn't wise to underestimate him.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll help the little bint," Spike muttered. He took one last drag, then tossed his spent cigarette to the floor and crushed it with his boot. He thought for a moment, then glanced at Andrew. "But you'll let me do it _my_ way. And if it doesn't work..." He paused for a moment, looking meaningfully at both Andrew and Faith.

"...if it doesn't work, what?" Faith prompted him impatiently.

Spike just shrugged. "Then you'll have to find yourself another boy," he said with forced cheerfulness, and studiously ignored Faith's pointed look by pulling another cigarette out of the pack. He lit it as Faith and Andrew glanced at one another, then back to Spike, and nodded their assent. They then turned to leave.

_If it doesn't work, she's a lost cause, and you're all too sodding sentimental to see it_, Spike said to himself as he lit the cigarette and the Slayer and junior Watcher left. He rubbed each of his forearms at the point where they'd been severed over a year ago. They itched sometimes when the weather turned inclement.

"A batty Slayer's too bloody dangerous to leave walkin' around," Spike muttered quietly to himself. "So if I can't save her...I'll have to kill her."

* * *


	2. Part 2 of 3

**Repairs**

_A Buffyverse fanfic by Raven_

* * *

**Part 2 of 3**

When the lights went out in her room, Dana did not react, did not move. She lay there on the cot, in her long t-shirt and boxer shorts and bare legs and feet, her eyes open and staring up into the darkness at a ceiling that wasn't visible.

The lights, like so many other things in her life, were not under her control. In her more lucid moments--which were few and far between, but she'd begun to have more of them lately, after months of therapy--she had to acknowledge that she was hardly under her own control either. So someone else turned her lights on and off, told her when to get dressed, when to eat, when she could go out of the room and when she had to go back inside it.

So the lights went out as they always did in her plain white room, the latest in a series of plain white room where she had eked out her days for about as long as she could remember. The lights went out and it was dark but Dana lay there and her mind kept working. She was waiting. Waiting for the dreams. The dreams that came when everything was quiet and dark and still. No, not dreams, memories. Except they weren't hers. But they were. She had them, so they must be hers.

In one she was a princess in a castle. In another she was a warrior in a village in Africa. In another still she was a Chinese girl and she danced with a sword. She was traveling with an Arabian trade caravan. She was a medicine woman in training in a Navajo tribe. She was the daughter of a seamstress in the Warsaw ghetto.

Slayers.

They were her. She was them. They were the same. Girls. Girls like her. But not like her. So many. So many girls...

She liked the memory of the black woman in the big city the best. She was the strongest and she lived longer than any other Slayer and fought and beat the most monsters. But that wasn't what Dana liked best. What she liked best was the little boy. Because he was hers and nothing had been hers for so long since she couldn't remember when. Except he wasn't. Hers. But Dana pretended he was. And she fought to keep him safe from the monsters and the vampires and he was beautiful and was the color of chocolate and Dana loved chocolate and she loved him and she protected him. She would never let a bad man take him and hurt him. Not like...never. Protect. PROTECT.

Except a bad man took _her_. Took her away from the little boy. A bad man with white hair and metal in his face and a sneer and a smile and a laugh when he killed her. And her last thought as his hands closed around her throat was about the little boy. She knew the little boy was safe and that was all that mattered.

Dana memorized the face of the man with white hair. She'd seen him before. He'd killed her before. In China. And he'd been the one who'd taken her and chained her and gave her the poison and touched her in places he shouldn't have places that were bad and dirty. She made herself remember but it didn't bother her because now she was a Slayer and she was strong and she fought him and she beat him and she made sure he'd never hurt her or touch her in the bad places again. She beat him. Him. The man. The man with the dark hair and the bald head. No. The man with the white hair. No. Which one? Was there another one? What other one? Who?

No. Monster. Champion. Vampire. Slayer. Evil. Good. Strong fight slay heart head fire sun dust dust-dust-dust-dust-dustdustdustdust

_Stop_.

It was hard, but she'd been learning, learning to make the confusing swirl of thoughts, the jumble of words and sounds and images in her head, learning to make it stop. Just for a moment. So she could be with them. The Slayers. So many of them, so many now, not one, many. She worked hard to make the noises and pictures stop so she could see them and hear them talk even if it didn't always make sense. They talked and they talked and their sentences were longer than the ones she said and shorter than the ones she thought but they were strong and they fought monsters and they were good. They were _good_. They wouldn't hurt her. They said so. And they didn't.

Well, they did at first. Because she had fought them. And they had fought her. But they would stop and they would say things and she started to listen and she learned. She learned if she didn't fight them, they wouldn't fight her. She can't remember when she learned it or how or how long it took but she did and she didn't fight them anymore and they didn't give her poison or hurt her or bind her in tight coats that itched and scraped against her skin.

And they smiled.

Not the lie-smile the doctors wore. Real smiles. Like she remembered. From the time before the man. Smiles. And she thought if she was with them long enough maybe she'd be able to smile like that too. She wanted to, but it was hard, she had forgotten, forgotten how.

She liked the other Slayers, even if she couldn't say so or even smile to let them know. Even though they kept her here, kept her in the little room and locked her away like all the others before, she still liked them. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt that way about anyone. Yes she could. Before the man took her. That was when. But not since. Not until now.

So she let them talk and she let them help her get dressed and let them take her out for exercise and she'd even been outside, out in the sun, she couldn't remember the last time she'd seen it. They had to take her back inside right away because it had scared her and because she'd started screaming. But she had gone outside and she had seen the sun and she held the memory in her mind like a precious, tiny jewel that she took out and caressed when it was dark and she was shut in her room. In her bed. Like now.

Quiet. Dark. Tired. Tired...

Why had they let him come back?

The thought came to her just as her eyes were about to close for the night. They opened wide instead. He'd came back. They'd let him find her. Today. Here! She'd started to think it was safe, but it wasn't. No place was safe. And he'd beaten her. He always won. She always lost. Maybe not at first, but eventually, she always did, it ended the same, with death. And the Slayers let him find her and face him alone and she didn't know why. Why? Why why why why why why...

_Click_.

Of course she heard it. She heard everything. She heard it and every sense was suddenly alert, her muscles tense, though to anyone watching she would not have appeared to have moved a muscle. Not at first. A heartbeat later she'd leapt off the cot and was on her feet. She crouched and her dark eyes scanned the room, looking for danger. Looking for him. Looking for the man.

It was the door. It was open, just a little. Light was coming through.

Dana stayed crouched on the floor, her eyes on the door. Waiting for someone or something to come through it. She felt no fear. She was a Slayer. She was strong. She would fight. But time went by and her heart beat in her chest and blood pounded in her ears and nothing came through the door and she heard no other sound. It didn't make sense. No sense at all. It was a break from the rules, from the routine of over a decade of locked rooms. Lights on, door opens. Door closes, lights off. But now the lights were off and the door was open and it didn't make sense. But nothing made sense. Nothing had made sense to Dana for such a very long time.

She slowly straightened. Then took a step. Then another. Her eyes looked about in her darkened room but saw nothing. She walked towards the open door. One step. Then another. She reached it. Put out her hand. Peered through the crack. Pushed the door open. It creaked softly and she flinched, but she took a breath and pushed it open. She looked out into the hall.

No one. Nothing. Empty. Not right. Her fists clenched. But the door was open. It had always been closed, she had been locked behind it for as long as she could remember, ever since the man took her and locked her up and after that everyone had done the same thing.

But now the door was open. The door had _never_ been open. Like moth and flame, sailor and siren, she was drawn to it.

She took a step through the door, out into the dim hallway which was lit only by a single pale light several feet away. Dana's eyes, wide now with amazement and exhilaration, but with a growing trepidation as well, stared into the dimly-lit hall. She stepped cautiously into it. She heard nothing but the faint electric buzz from the single light that was on. No one said anything, or called her name, or yelled at her, or came running towards her.

She began to walk down the hallway, slowly at first, her head whipping left to right then back again excitedly, her long dark hair flying about her slender shoulders as her eyes searched the dim hallway for threats but saw none. She walked faster. Then faster still. Her heart pounded in her chest. She forgot all about the girls and their talk and their smiles. Somewhere down this hallway was another door, then maybe another one, but somewhere after that would be the last one and then she would be outside and then she would be free. And she would go far, far away and be away from the man and his poison and his hands forever.

* * *

He watched in complete and utter silence as Dana left her room and walked down the hall. He followed her with the silent stealth of a hunter who had pursued prey like her for over a century. He did not breathe, his heart did not beat, he did not sweat; he made no sound and left no scent. He was the perfect predator.

But _she_ had a scent. He could smell it and it was like perfume in his nostrils and like liquor in his cold and stagnant veins, intoxicating, exhilarating. He could smell her adrenaline--her excitement, her fear as well.

And, of course, her blood. Oh, yes, her blood.

Warm, thick, sweet, gushing through her arteries, her heart pumping it faster and faster as she began to run down the hall, her pursuer following unnoticed behind her. The thick rubber soles of his boots made soft scuffing noises on the tiled floor, and his long leather duster made a gentle flapping noise against his legs, but she was lost to the thrill of her imminent escape now and would not hear him. Not until it was far, far too late, not until he was so close he could practically lick the sweat from the back of her slender neck.

Oh yes. He would make his presence known to her _very _soon.

* * *


	3. Part 3 of 3

**Repairs**

_A Buffyverse fanfic by Sisiutil_

* * *

**Part 3 of 3**

Dana pushed open the last door, her breathing heavy not from exertion but from excitement. She stepped through it and out into the cool air of a California night in late autumn. Her eyes, wide and watchful, looked up and took in the dark, moonless sky, the stars all but blotted out by the ambient light of the city. The sound hit her then and nearly made her jump back through the door, but she stood her ground. Cars. Music. A siren. And voices. Muted, distant, but so many. She looked across the grassy lawn she had last seen only once before in daylight.

There, just on the other side of a fence of thin metal rails, was one end of a commercial strip. It was brightly lit by the streetlights and the signs for shops and bars and clubs. Cars cruised along it. People were on its sidewalks, not too many, but enough. Enough to make her pause. But only for a moment. Dana looked toward the fence. She got ready to break into a run. She was a Slayer. Strong. They couldn't stop her. Couldn't hurt her. And if they tried...

"Go on then, Looney Tunes. You know you want to."

The voice--_his _voice--came from right behind her, so close she could feel his breath--no, not his breath, he didn't breathe, it doesn't matter--on her neck. She gasped and sprang forward while she swung her arm around and back.

Spike easily ducked the blow--he'd been expecting it--and chuckled softly as he danced away from her and out into the night alongside her. She glared at him, her hands clenched into tight fists, her body in an attack stance she had never learned directly but knew from the shared Slayer memories. It looked like one of Buffy's, and one of Nikki's too, and that made Spike's smile grow broader. _Bloody Slayers. Always bring the same moves to the dance, not that they realize it. _

"Nice try, luv, but I'm not lookin' to go best out o' three," Spike said as he moved a safe distance from the hostile, unbalanced Slayer. "Truth is, I'm the one that sprung you." Dana only glared back at him. Spike's eyes rolled impatiently. He was sure that only every third word, if that, penetrated her warped brain. "Me. You. Out. Let. You catchin' any of this?" he practically barked at her, his hands gesturing meaningfully. "I opened the door, let you out, you crazy cu--"

"Why?"

The question, perfectly reasonable and following logically from what he'd told her, surprised Spike a little. His brows raised and his hands dropped to his sides.

"Why?" he repeated. "Why do you _think_?" Dana frowned at him and maintained her fighting stance. "Oh. Yeh. Right. You're incapable of rational thought, aren't you? You'd think I'd be used to that after one hundred years of Dru."

"WHY?" Dana repeated, forcefully, her teeth clenched.

Spike cocked his head slightly. His lips curled into a smug grin. "Cause I like you. You're a right precious piece of work, you are. Off the deep end. Loose cannon. A crazy Slayer!" he declared with a derisive laugh. "Sounds like something Angelus would've dreamed up. But never 'ad the wrinklies to pull off."

"WHY?" Dana asked again.

Spike clenched his teeth impatiently and leaned towards her a little. "Because, you barmy bint, you're _just. Like. ME._"

At first, Spike saw no sign that his words had penetrated her scrambled thought processes. But then, after a few seconds, he saw her shift her stance, ever so slightly. And her eyes left him, just for a moment. One corner of his mouth curled upwards.

"Yeah, you know I'm right, don't you, pet?" he murmured to her. "You're a _monster_. Like _me_."

"No," Dana growled at him, her voice starting to waver. "Slayer. Vampire. Good. Evil."

Spike shrugged. "Tom-A-to. Tom-AH-to. Marzipan. Fruitcake. Chair. Sex." He took a step back and then reached into the pocket of his duster for his smokes and lighter. "Never went in much for the free association crap meself. Do shrinks still do that?" he asked as he casually tapped a cigarette from the pack. He placed it between his lips, put the pack into his pocket, and flicked the lighter aflame. "Face it, pet. You're bloody bonkers. _And_ you're a Slayer. That makes you dangerous as hell. And I know a thing or two 'bout that."

"No. Slayer. Protect," Dana said insistently, frozen in her fighting stance now, unsure how to proceed in the face of her opponent's nonchalance. And his insinuations.

Spike lit the cigarette and took a drag. He pulled it from his lips and blew the smoke out through his nostrils. "Yeah, sure, whatever. Go on, then," he said, gesturing towards the shopping strip. "Go 'protect' those fine people. Like you did last year, that security guard you put in the hospital. Good work, ace," he went on, giving her a mocking thumbs up. Still Dana didn't move. "Look, I'll even give you a pointer, for free," Spike said cheerfully. "Kill the men first, _then _the women and children. 'Cause then? You get to hear the wives and wee ones screamin'. That's the best part, the screamin'," he told her, then took another pull on the cigarette. "Okay, that's a lie, the best part is the blood. But for you, I 'spect, it'll be the screamin'. That, or the feelin' of bone crackin' 'neath your fingers..." he added with a vicious smile as his hands clenched as though they were throttling an invisible victim.

"NO!" Dana shouted angrily. She stepped forward, jabbed her right fist at Spike and barely missed the vampire, who ducked and weaved away, chuckling condescendingly. Dana threw a left uppercut at him, but Spike deflected the blow, grabbed her wrist, and twisted her around while stepping behind her. He kept her wrist held tight and pressed that forearm against her windpipe while he threw his other arm around her waist, pinning her left arm and pressing her body against his. She writhed and grunted angrily in his grip, but he held her fast. He held his lips less than an inch from her neck.

"Once you start killin' grown men," he whispered, "doin' the women and the brats is easy. Just think, all those little boys and little girls, dead in your grip. Makes you feel powerful. Makes you feel like a bleedin' god, it does."

"Little boys..." Dana muttered, her eyes widening, her voice tight.

Spike heard it and knew it meant something to her. He didn't know what it meant, but he knew he could use it. He released her and pushed her away from him. Dana stumbled forward and turned quickly to face him.

"Oh, don't tell me you're squeamish about offin' a few schoolboys?" he said with a broad smile. "Little boys, they just grow up to be men. Big, bad men. All the same. Catch 'em early, I say. Do 'em while they're young. Go on now. GO ON!" he shouted, waving towards the crowded street only a few yards away.

"No...protect..." Dana insisted.

"Protect? You? That's a giggle!" Spike scoffed. "You're the one they need protectin' _from_!"

"No! Slayer..." Dana replied. Weakly. Hesitantly.

Spike could see the cracks starting to appear. _Time to put this ball in the net_, he told himself. "Yes. Slayer. _Killer_."

"NO!" Dana responded, her eyes widening in horror. "SLAYER!"

Spike shrugged. "Same diff, pet," he said, raising the cigarette to his lips again. "You hunt. You slay. You _kill_. It's what you are."

"No..." Dana said. "NO!"

Her head shook slowly in denial; her eyes were brimming with tears. The memory-dreams were flooding back in on her now, hundreds, thousands of girls, down through the ages, all like her, but not like her. She, alone among them, was wrong, was a mistake. She could seem them all, in her mind's eye, fighting for good, fighting the monsters, protecting people. People. Monsters. They all looked the same to Dana. How did the other Slayers know? How did they know who to protect, who to slay--to kill? She didn't! She searched through the memories for something, anything, to tell her how to do it.

Then, in a flash, she saw him. She saw his face. Saw him in her mind until he was all she saw. His sweet face, his big dark eyes looking up at her like she had all the answers, like she was his whole world, because she was. Those delicate little hands, the chubby cheeks, the chocolate skin. Dark skin. Like the man in the store, when she took the clothing, who tried to stop her, but she hurt him, she...

Was that him? Was that the boy? The one she protected in the big city, the one she loved? Had she met him, all grown up, and hurt him? Had she? No, not her. Someone else. Yes. No. Her, yes, her. She was wrong. She was bad. She was a Slayer. She was a monster. She was...she was...

"Robeeee!!" Dana cried, then dropped her arms to her sides. The tears spilled over, ran down her face, as she fell to her knees. "I'm soreee..." she wailed.

Spike watched Dana collapse, watched her begin to cry as she wrapped her arms around herself and squeeze her body in a hug no one else would give her. His heart, unbeating though it was, went out to her. He grunted and shook his head, contemptuous of the sudden rush of feeling._ William. William the Bloody. Bloody William_, Spike thought. _So sensitive, so sentimental._ Had he always been there? He'd fought to get his soul back, but he'd taken to wondering lately if it had ever completely left him. _Whatever the sodding case, Willy, keep your festering gob shut. I'm not done here_, Spike said to himself.

"I know why," he said aloud. He waited for her to pause in her sobbing, then said it again. "I know why. I do. I know why you want to go and hurt them. Hurt them all back. I really and truly do. I know why."

Spike waited. He'd lived over a hundred years, and though he didn't think of himself as patient, and certainly wasn't known for possessing that virtue in abundance, he could sometimes surprise himself.

"W-why?" Dana asked shakily, a few minutes later, as she rocked back and forth, kneeling on the grass, her arms still wrapped around herself.

Spike squatted down in front of her--still a safe enough distance away, but close enough so he could speak to her in an intimate murmur and still be heard.

"Because, pet," he said, "It doesn't make sense."

Dana frowned and snuffled. She loosened her arms' grip around her body and wiped some mucous from her upper lip. "Doesn't make sense..." she repeated.

"No. The world," Spike explained with a glance towards the people walking along the shopping strip a few dozen yards away. "It don't make sense. Never has, never will. Doesn't matter when or how you learned it. Whether it was some wanker pulled you out of your warm and snuggly little bed and tortured you, or whether you tried to help the most important person in the world to you and had it thrown back in your face, so you had to..." Spike paused and pressed his lips together tightly. He pushed himself back up, straightened, and took another drag on his cigarette. He glanced down at Dana and saw her staring up at him expectantly.

"It doesn't matter," he told her. "The world stopped making sense. For both of us. Well, sod the world then, eh, luv?" He declared, spreading his arms, then letting them drop and slap at his sides. "It's all blood and carnage and chaos. Might as well embrace it. May as well sow a little chaos yourself. Show some other stupid gits it doesn't make sense," " he muttered, tossing his spent cigarette butt onto the grass and crushing it out. "Or at least, that's what I thought. For a hundred years. Until..."

Spike fell silent. Dana wiped the tears from her cheeks and gazed up at him. "...until?" she prompted him.

"Bloody hell," he grumbled, glancing down at her, "you still payin' attention? Bleedin' miracle."

"You're...different," Dana declared, and the words made Spike's eyes go wide. He stared at her, incredulous that the crazy Slayer could actually make a statement that made sense. Perhaps Faith had been right about her. "Shanghai. New York. You're...different," Dana repeated.

"Bugger me!" Spike swore softly. "Forgot about those Slayer memories. Yeh. I am different. Though I wish you'd noticed before you went all home improvement on me soddin' arms."

"How?" Dana asked, and Spike could hear the desperation in her voice. And...the hope? Because if he could change, if an evil, soulless vampire, a merciless killer, could change, then...maybe...she...?

But how to explain it to her? _Love, souls, Buffy, champions, the end of the bloody world... _It was all too complicated. He could see it in her eyes: she was struggling just to _hear_ his words right now, let alone make sense of them. He knew whatever he said next was crucial, could save her or lose her. He paused a moment, and did the only thing he could, called upon the only part of himself that could hope to reach her. _William, you bloody sad, pathetic little man...I sodding need you! Tell me what to say, and if the word "effulgent" is in it, I swear, I'm takin' this soul back and exchanging it for a bloody toaster oven!_

A moment later, Spike squatted down again in front of Dana. He looked into her eyes, which were dark and uncertain. She was skittish as a trapped animal, he could see that now.

"The thing you have to do," he said quietly, "is find something. Just..._one thing_, in this whole stupid, bleedin', cocked-up mess of world, one thing that makes sense. Something. Some_one_. They might...heh...they might seem all wrong, at first. Might be your bloody worst enemy. But...they just...make sense, when nothing else does. And...you hang on to them. With all your strength, for all you're worth. Even if..." the vampire's voice caught, taking him by surprise, and he looked up at the dark sky. He coughed and continued. "Even if it's only in your heart," he finished softly. "That's...that's all I know." He shook his head and stared at the grass.

They remained there for some time, kneeling on the grass as though in prayer, the vampire and the Slayer--mortal enemies, and kindred spirits--each lost in their own thoughts, his clear and despondent, hers jumbled and terrifying.

"Well," Spike said finally as he began to push himself back up to his feet. "Here endeth the lesson..."

The vampire's voice froze in his throat when he felt her hand enclose his wrist. He looked down, startled, searching for the attack. None came. He looked down at Dana and saw not a dangerous, homicidal maniac with super-powers, but a young woman, her eyes haunted and wounded, and looking to him--him, of all the creatures on Earth!--for answers. Her grip was like steel, but it held no threat. She held onto him like a drowning girl would to anything that would keep her head above water. When she spoke, her voice was so soft he barely heard her over the nearby din of the city, but heard her he did, and what she said shocked him and shook him to his core as few things he'd heard in over a hundred years ever had.

"Help me," she said.

His first instinct was to yank his arm away, the arm she'd sliced through only a year before, and run like hell. _Are you out of your bleedin' mind?_ he wanted to shout at her, _Of course you are, but this...! Not me, ANYONE but me, you poor, pathetic, crazy bint! Not me, not bloody ME!_

"Help me," she repeated, raising her other hand to enclose his forearm pleadingly.

No one, in all his short unhappy life, in all his century of un-life, had ever asked him that. Not his mother. Certainly not Drusilla. Not even Buffy, not even when she was at her lowest. He stood, staring at her, immobile and not knowing how to respond. The whole world seemed to freeze for Spike as he struggled to come up with an answer, any answer, other than the one she craved. But in the end, that was the only answer he could possibly give.

"Uh, okay," Spike muttered. He coughed, clearing his throat. "I mean, yeh. I'll...do what I can, pet."

He watched her as he gave his answer. He didn't think anything else she could possibly do would surprise him more than what she'd just asked, but he was wrong. It was a mere flicker upon her youthful face, lasting only the briefest of moments. Spike even wondered if he'd seen it. But just for a second, the corner of one side of her mouth had curled up in the very slightest, the most tentative of smiles. Then it was gone. But it had been there, and he'd seen it.

He raised his eyes and looked away from her, his eyelids blinking rapidly. He gently eased her back up to her feet.

"All right, come on, little bit," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "Past your beddy-bye, i'n'it?" He began to slowly walk with her back into the Watcher's Council safe house, Dana still clinging to his arm and accompanying him willingly.

He could see dark figures in the doorway, slender female figures, and one man. Two of the girls stepped forward, their arms held out gently to Dana. She whimpered softly and pressed herself closer to Spike, like a frightened kitten to its sole protector. The two Slayers stepped back, and Spike could see the surprise on their faces.

"S'alright," he said, "I'll get her tucked in." He caught an arch look from one of the Slayers and glowered at her. "Not like that, you stupid bint! Get your mind out o' the bleedin' gutter or I'll scoop it out and leave it there!" he snarled, making the young woman shrink back and lower her head in embarrassment. Spike placed one arm, tenderly and protectively, over Dana's shoulders, and walked with her through the doors and back down the hall.

"The council has granted me permission to train you. You _will_ be a Jedi, I promise," Andrew intoned softly and reverently as he watched the Champion leading their mentally crippled Slayer back to her room.

"Right, whatever," Faith muttered from beside him. She sighed. "How much time did Angel spend with her?"

"About a month," Andrew answered.

"And Spike makes more progress with her in one night..." Faith muttered.

"An extreme case for an extreme case, little one," Andrew said knowingly, oblivious to Faith's annoyed glance at him. "Told you my boy would come through for us," he added with no small amount of self-satisfaction as he placed his unlit pipe between his lips. "I believe a certain sultry Slayer of the vam-_pyres_ owes a certain Watcher-in-training a case of Jolt."

"This is just gonna kick you up a notch on the insufferability meter, isn't it?" Faith said tiredly. "Not that I thought that was possible..."

"Let's just say that I'm feeling...five by five," Andrew said smugly.

Faith just rolled her eyes and exhaled heavily, then followed the other Slayers back inside. Andrew waited until the doors closed behind them. He then walked a few paces out onto the lawn and looked up at the roof of the safe house. It wasn't a house, except in name. It was a former private school, its century-old brick covered in ivy. Much of its once-extensive grounds had been sold off, resulting in the proximity of the commercial strip just outside the fence. But the facility nonetheless served the Council's purposes quite nicely. The roof was flat, covered with gravel, and surrounded by a waist-high cornice that served as a perfect mounting point for sniper rifles.

The Watcher-in-training gave the all-clear sign to the two men on the rooftop. He had ordered them to shoot to kill if the unbalanced Slayer had gotten within a yard of the fence. Fortunately, that had not proven necessary. Spike had come through for them. Again. Andrew had never doubted it, but Mr. Giles had been adamant about taking every precaution.

As the men retreated from their rooftop vantage points, Andrew returned his pipe to his lips and sucked the faintest of tobacco scents into his mouth. Someday, he was going to have to figure out how to light the thing. Perhaps the next time he saw Mr. Giles, the senior Watcher could show him. His decision made, Andrew nodded and went back inside the building.

* * *

_The End...for now._


End file.
